Opinion

Are college essays dying? Rethinking integrity in the AI era

By Aneri Prashant Mehta | 2:00am

As a leading research institution, UW-Madison has an opportunity to shape how AI is integrated into higher education rather than react to it. AI is already embedded in academic and professional environments, and the greater risk lies not in the technology itself, but in policies that fail to evolve alongside it. The question is no longer whether AI belongs in education, but whether universities will define its role — or allow outdated policies to define it for them.

The Night the Sky Turned Orange

By Tahereh Rahimi | 2:00am

Letter to the editor: Student Council at-large graduate rep stresses the need for more listening, engagement with student body

By Elizabeth Richenda Anderson | Apr. 14

More Opinion

OPINION

Letter to the editor: Gronert Messaging Story Not Worthy of Publication

By Brian Wagenaar | Apr. 12

Editor’s note: Letters to the Editor and open letters reflect the opinions, concerns and views of University of Wisconsin-Madison students and community, may or may not be accurate and do not reflect the editorial views or opinions of The Daily Cardinal

OPINION

Letter to the editor: So You Want to Fight the Gun Lobby

By Nora Hart | Apr. 12

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OPINION

College is a gamble. But is it worth the risk?

By Safa Razvi | Apr. 9

There is no straightforward answer. Who you are, where you come from and what you want all shape whether college is worth it. The question isn’t just if college pays off. It’s for whom and under what circumstances.

OPINION

Course enrollments are around the corner. Help from UW should be too

By Sungyun Jung | Apr. 9

A university that encourages independence must also ensure students are equipped to succeed within that independence. Clearer communication of requirements, more proactive advising and improved accessibility to academic support systems are not luxuries. They are necessities. Independence should not mean isolation.

OPINION

The invisible costs of college

By Sungyun Jung | Mar. 27

Some spend their evenings attending club meetings, building connections with alumni or socializing with classmates. Others spend those same hours working shifts at dining halls, libraries or off-campus jobs to cover basic living expenses. For students who must work to support themselves, attending a meeting or event is not simply a matter of scheduling. It is a choice between opportunity and income.

OPINION

Madison doesn’t need more rooftop pools. Affordable housing is a right, not a privilege

By Brady Ahler | Mar. 26

Madison doesn’t need any more rooftop pools or private hot tubs. We need a housing system that sees students as people to be housed rather than profit margins to be maximized.

OPINION

How to stay mentally and physically healthy in college

By Kate Hlinko | Mar. 19

College can be, without a doubt, the most vibrant, exciting time of one's life. But it can also be an experience often overshadowed by stress and anxiety. For many students, college is their first experience living somewhere away from home, surrounded by new people in a completely unique dynamic. To make sure that potential stress doesn’t wash away the fun of college life, it’s key for students to prioritize their own mental and physical health.

OPINION

We are living through an empathy drought. Critical thinking is the rain

By Siena Ferraro | Mar. 19

This empathy drought is corroding the United States at breakneck speed. During this tumultuous time, community and intersectional support are more valuable than ever. Yet, collective indifference is thwarting steps taken toward true liberty and justice for all, dampening even the smallest flames of social progress.

OPINION

Is the ‘look good, feel good’ cliché true?

By Aneri Prashant Mehta | Mar. 12

Looking good does not always mean wearing formal or expensive clothing. It can be as simple as styling your hair, wearing clothes that fit well or choosing an outfit that makes you feel comfortable and confident. Small efforts in personal presentation can still have a noticeable impact on how we feel. At the same time, it is important not to place all of our value on appearance. Focusing on how we look should not come at the expense of our character or personal qualities. Instead, caring about our appearance can simply reflect self-respect and confidence.

OPINION

Technological convenience is making it much harder to be a student.

By Rachel Gerhardt | Mar. 12

Campus wide technology and interfaces, meant to make students’ lives easier, have only strengthened the expectation that students (and professors) are always “logged on,” and can be communicated with at any point. The harm is not in the fact that students stay up late to turn in assignments, but in that the line between when students are expected to be productive and when they can relax is fading. The cost of the convenience of not having to turn in a paper homework assignment in class is the loss of separation between student’s academic and personal lives.

OPINION

There’s a greater cost to ‘liberation.’ Trump airstrikes threaten Middle Eastern stability

By Safa Razvi | Mar. 5

Iran deserves freedom from authoritarianism. Its people deserve dignity, self-autonomy and safety. However, real freedom cannot be delivered through imperial ambition. It cannot be engineered by foreign powers who have their own interests at heart.

OPINION

There’s no such thing as choosing the wrong major

By Aneri Prashant Mehta | Mar. 5

So if you're in a career identity crisis, being scared not just of failing, but of not becoming the right version of yourself, know that you're not the only one. The fear of waking up one day and hating the career you picked is a threat that hangs above all of us. But what if we looked at our major as the first step in discovering how we think and what we care about?

OPINION

Being busy is not the flex you think it is

By Shreya Bhargava | Feb. 26

College is supposed to be a period of transformation. A time when people experiment, question and figure out who they want to become. Yet, when busyness becomes the dominant signal of value, that transformation narrows. Identity gets built around output, character gets measured through capacity and humanity gets filtered through productivity.

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OPINION

Trump’s Team USA hockey debacle

By Safa Razvi | Feb. 26

In celebrating the men while snidely diminishing the women, the White House showed that even in moments of national pride, gender equality is only embraced when convenient.

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OPINION

Culture or costume? The line between Chinese appreciation and appropriation.

By Sydney Frusher | Feb. 19

Being Chinese is not a trend or a brand that can be defined by a consumer base to which people cherry-pick and customize to their own convenience. Being Chinese is an identity and lived experience marked by traditions and values established far before the emergence of the countries and peoples who seek to exoticize it.

OPINION

Who gets to belong on America’s biggest stage?

By Lily Andrias | Feb. 19

If belonging depends on exclusion, it will always be fragile. If national identity cannot accommodate linguistic and cultural plurality, it does not reflect the country as it exists. Bad Bunny’s halftime show became a question America needs to answer: is expansion a threat, or is it simply the next chapter in a story that has never been singular to begin with?

OPINION

How algorithmic music streaming killed music taste

By Rachel Gerhardt | Feb. 12

If we do not take our music listening habits out of the cold, dead hands of an automated algorithm — not to mention whose pockets the dirty hands of major music streaming platforms CEOs are sliding millions of dollars into — Mr. Music-Lover will be an archaic caricature of a passionate past lost to a passionless present.